Financial advisor salary and jobs in Miami

BLS reports two kinds of average. The median, $125,670¹ a year or $60.42¹ an hour, is the advisor in the middle. The mean, $177,500¹, runs far higher because the highest earners pull it up, so the median is the better guide to typical pay. Both include commissions, incentive pay and production bonuses.

Miami's median is about 24%^1,2 above the Florida median and about 20%^1,3 above the US median, and its top tenth runs above both. Its bottom tenth sits at about the US level, so the higher median does not lift the low end.

Many Miami advisor pay figures you find online sit well below the BLS median. The gap comes from what each source measures.

• Entry job titles. Some sites price a junior title meant for advisors in their first years and label it the Miami salary.
• A small set of job ads. Some posting averages rest on a small number of ads gathered over several years, and they show base pay with commission split out or left out.
• Self-reported and early-career samples. Some figures come from pay that users type in or from career sites built for students and recent graduates, so they lean toward people new to the job.
• Old government tables. Some pages still show BLS tables from May 2019, which are out of date.
• The old top-code. Until May 2025, BLS did not publish exact wage percentiles above a cap, most recently $239,200⁹, and printed only a footnote in their place, so older tables leave the Miami top-tenth figure blank. The May 2025 Miami top-tenth figure sits above that old cap.

The BLS figures on this page come from a survey of employers across the whole metro and estimate pay for all the advisors on their payrolls, new and experienced. Because they include experienced advisors, they are not a guide to pay in a first advisor job, and BLS publishes no figure by years of experience.

BLS put the May 2025 Miami median at $63,790¹ for securities sales agents and $60,260¹ for insurance sales agents, against $125,670¹ for personal financial advisors. Both agent jobs are more concentrated in Miami than in the US, but unlike advisors, their Miami medians sit below the US medians.

The BLS job definitions separate the three by what the work is.

• Personal financial advisors advise clients on financial plans, drawing on tax and investment strategies, securities, insurance, pension plans and real estate, and may also buy and sell financial assets for clients.
• Securities sales agents buy and sell securities or commodities in investment and trading firms, or provide financial services to businesses and individuals.
• Insurance sales agents sell life, property, casualty, health, automotive or other insurance, for an insurance company or as an independent broker.

BLS sorts workers by the work they do, under the federal job classification rules, so a job title alone does not decide the count. Its advisor definition excludes securities sales agents, so some people with an advisor title may be counted as securities agents. Among Miami securities agents the mean, $93,900¹, is far above the median, because the highest earners pull it up. If you sell insurance now, the insurance agent to advisor guide covers what your license already lets you sell and which licenses advising adds.

Prices in the Miami metro were 14.2%⁷ above the US average in 2024, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, against 3.4%⁸ for Florida as a whole. That is the highest price level of the Florida metros on this page, and housing shows by far the largest gap.

These are price levels only. This page does not adjust pay for them, and the price year (2024) differs from the pay year (May 2025).

Florida and FINRA, the regulator of brokerage firms, set the licensing rules, not the city or county, so the steps in Miami are the same as anywhere in Florida. To give investment advice for a fee, you need the Series 65, or one of the designations Florida accepts in its place, and a firm must register you with the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, Division of Securities¹⁰ as an investment adviser representative. The registration fee Florida sets in statute is $50¹¹. The regulator explains the filing on its apply for a license page.

To also buy and sell stocks and bonds for clients as a broker, you need the SIE, FINRA's entry exam, and the Series 7. The Series 7 needs a sponsor, a broker-dealer (a brokerage firm) that takes you on and enrolls you for the exam, as how to get sponsored for the Series 7 explains. With the Series 7, the Series 66 can take the place of the Series 65, and Florida does not require the Series 63. Life, health and annuity sales need a separate license from the Florida Department of Financial Services.

If you are still in another job, you can take the SIE and the Series 65 before you join a firm, because neither needs a sponsor. Passing them does not register you, which still takes a firm. The Florida guide has every step, fee and waiver, Advisor Train covers exam prep, and the roadmap builder puts the steps in order for your job and timeline.

Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville are the other large advisor markets in Florida, each with a lower median than Miami. North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota and Naples have nearly the same share of advisor jobs as Miami but far fewer advisors, and Port St. Lucie has fewer still.

Price levels are on the same base as the prices table above. Every Florida metro BLS publishes is on the Florida guide.

• The Miami advisor count is a survey estimate. Its relative standard error is 14.2%¹, so the true number could be noticeably higher or lower. The Miami securities and insurance agent counts are tighter, at 5.8%¹ and 8.2%¹.
• Self-employed advisors are not counted. OEWS covers wage and salary workers only. Nationally, the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook counts 299,400¹² advisor jobs in 2025 including the self-employed, against 266,800³ in OEWS. BLS publishes no Miami count that includes them.
• No comparisons over time. BLS does not encourage using OEWS data as a time series, so this page does not compare May 2025 with older Miami figures.

The data and sources page explains how OEWS, the Occupational Outlook Handbook and Census counts differ.